Led Zeppelin IV at 40 POSTERS UNVEILED + ORDER NOW!

Posted November 19 2011

Black Dog by Justin Hampton

Edition of 200 signed and numbered prints

“To me, ‘Black Dog’ is the antithesis of Rock N Roll. Hard,
heavy, sexual and primal. The sentiment is as old as the beginning of
man and woman and the eternal subject matter of the earliest Blues song.
It’s about obsession, infatuation, lust, frustration, disappointment
and yearning. It’s mostly from a man’s perspective but there would be
no Blues or Rock N Roll if this emotion did not exist between the
sexes.”
Justin Hampton

“What is more Rock and Roll than groupie sex in your hotel after a show with an actual shark?

The story of Led Zeppelin at the Edgewater is legendary in every form
it’s been told. The hotel boasts it’s added feature of fishing from your
room. Why? Because the Edgewater Hotel, in Seattle, is on the edge of
water.

Legend has it that a roadie caught a shark with John Bonham and things got a lil’ nutty.

“‘The Battle of Evermore’ has such rich and illustrative lyrics,
the most difficult part to approaching this piece was choosing what
elements to focus on. I wanted to showcase the battles between light and
dark, and highlight the tension and conflict in the song. It’s one of
my favorite Led Zeppelin songs, and was a thrill to work with.”John Vogl

“What does ‘Stairway To Heaven’ look like? I’ll admit, I’m still
not quite sure: there are as many interpretations for this song as there
are individuals who’ve heard it. For me, it’s a song drenched in
‘duality’. It lyrically defines two paths: the choice to follow some
‘script’ in life, dictated by dogma, tradition, or teaching OR the
option of trusting the inner voice, the ‘humming’ in your head.

I believe that there is energy within each one of us that naturally
attempts to sync up with the pulsing of the universe, the grid
connecting everything and everyone in existence. As a race of beings,
we’ve become so very distracted over the ages that we’ve gradually
forgotten how to ‘hear’ it. I think the song celebrates the option to
‘listen very hard’ & to follow the primal music in your head.

Still, the choice is ours...and the image I created is dominated by
that same aspect of duality. Two paths. You can try to cheat the game
and buy the ‘stairway to heaven’...or you can surrender to the wheel of
fortune and just live it out day by day.”Jermaine Rogers

“I have always been drawn to the lyrics “So I’m packing my bags
for the Misty Mountains where the spirits go now, over the hills where
the spirits fly. “ They not only paint a picture of what was going on
in the park that famed day in the song, but touch on the oft-mentioned
middle-earth interests the guys seem to have had throughout their
illustrious career. I wanted to let my mind run wild and send myself off
to the misty mountains where I was greeted by this very flying spirit.
I modeled our flying friend after the serpents and Dragons Jimmy has
been known to adorn on-stage.”
Nate Duval

“This was a really challenging piece for me to make. The power of
the songs opening riffs, with the relentless rhythms from the entire
band set the pace. Reading how Page and Co. took to creating the song
as an abstract, I latched onto this as I’ve been making prints of
semi-abstract landscapes recently. Taking imagery from the night, and
the woods, the belly of an owl filled with a river in the English
Countryside I hope I conveyed at least a part of what the song brings
out emotionally.”Dan Grzeca

“There are so many things that conjure up thoughts of California.
There’s an old national lampoon radio show in which Hunter Thompson is
assigned to find the essence of Cali. He drives around the state in a
car with the radio blaring all things Cali, and encounters events
typical to his assignment, and he’s oblivious to it all. Can’t get a
handle on it.

To me, to represent Cali I used the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s not the
Hollywood sign which is L.A. The bridge is a Cali thing, with the fog
and ocean. The stamp border refers to travelling, going from here to
there, not stationary. I used warm colours and built around the yellow
sky. The illustration process was scratch board which is very organic
and in keeping with the California feel. [although i guess you could
argue that southern cali is pretty slick] All seperations are hand cut
with airbrush splatter on rubylith and then each colour is hand pulled.
There are 6 colour passes on this print. ”